The suspect was identified by campus police in a press conference
Monday afternoon as Abdul Razak Ali Artan. Artan was a Somali
refugee who came to the US legally with his parents in 2014 after
living in Pakistan for seven years, according to law enforcement
officials
cited by NBC News.

The Lantern, Ohio State University's student newspaper,
appears to have profiled Artan on his first day at OSU in August
2016. Artan told the paper that he had just transferred from
Columbus State Community College, and that as a practicing Muslim
he "wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of scared with
everything going on in the media."

"If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I
don't know what they're going to think, what's going to happen.
But, I don't blame them. It's the media that put that picture
in their heads so they're going to just have it and it, it's
going to make them feel uncomfortable. I was kind of scared
right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went over to
the corner and just prayed."

A Columbus State Community College
spokesman told Vice News that Artan had just transferred to
OSU from the college and had no disciplinary issues while he was
a student there.